To
put Blue Row's history into context, on this page we have reviewed what else was
happening in the world those first residents would have lived in. Much of this
information has been gleaned from Wikipedia.
We offer no apology for the narrowness of this 'world' view. Many villagers
would never have been so far as Oxford, 19 miles away. In the context of this
time line, not long after the earlier demesne on the land had burnt to the
ground, Blue Row Cottages were built by John Powell, stone mason.

"Two hundred years ago, in the shadow of a mammoth
Naval victory, the United Kingdom was a nation in mourning for Admiral
Lord Horatio Nelson, killed by a French sniper's bullet at the Battle of
Trafalgar. " (BBC, January 2006)

The world was changing rapidly, but many of the key
historicalevents probably passed by
the inhabitants of this little corner of rural England. Remember, the time is
not long since the American and French Revolutions. The Union Jack has only
existed for 5 years, with the union with Ireland. But rural England and the
wider landscape were at this time perhaps relatively unchanged since medieval
times, even though many of Swerford’s present buildings date from around this
time.The landscape itself was to
change over the next century, as land was concentrated in fewer hands. There is
no evidence of rioting against enclosures in Swerford itself, as in Otmoor, only
a few miles away, but there is no doubt that Swerford’s people would have been
affected. There are many descriptions of how the countryside would have been
changing, for example: http://www.countrylovers.co.uk/places/histlan4.htm.
The biggest excitement for many would have been a visit to the market at
Chipping Norton, 5 miles’ walk away, or to Banbury, 8 miles to walk, or an
outing for the school children on the village green. The big event of the
calendar might have been seeing the Morris Men from Adderbury or Bampton.

Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin had yet to be born, as
had Abraham Lincoln. It would be 9 years before the battle of Waterloo was won,
13 years before Queen Victoria was born, 31 years till she ascended the throne,
and one hundred years until the great San Francisco earthquake. But the great
era of the Romantic poets was just beginning. Wordsworth’s Daffodils was
written in 1804, and published in 1807, with Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner
having been published around 10 years earlier, and Keats, Shelley and Byron
would soon be producing their best known poems.

September
- Prussia declares war on France, and is joined by Saxony and other minor German states.

October
14 - Battle of Jena-Auerstädt -
Napoleon defeats the Prussian army of
Prince
Hohenlohe at Jena
while Marshal Davout defeats the main Prussian
army under the Duke of Brunswick, who is
killed.

October
24 - French forces enter Berlin.

November
- Napoleon declares a Continental Blockade
against the British

November
15 - Pike
expedition: During his second exploratory expedition, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (it was later named Pikes Peak in his honour).

November
24 - The last major Prussian field force, under Leberecht von Blücher, surrenders
to the French near Lübeck. The king of Prussia has by this time fled to Russia.

November
30 - Napoleon captures Warsaw.

December
26 - Battle of Pultusk. Russian forces under General Bennigsen narrowly
escape from a direct confrontation with Napoleon, who goes into winter quarters.